The present invention relates generally to the field of document analysis, and more particularly to preventing unauthorized replication of copyrighted materials.
Intellectual property refers to work (i.e., creative, intellectual, or artistic forms) produced by creations of the mind through the exercise and expenditure of creative talent and effort. The work produced may comprise music, literature, discoveries, inventions, words, phrases, symbols, etc. The creator of these works may be granted intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are legally recognized, exclusive rights to creations of the mind which entitle the creator the right to reproduce, distribute, display, and or perform the protected work, and create derivative works. Common types of intellectual property rights include patents (e.g., rights for discoveries and inventions), trademarks (e.g., rights for words, phrases, and symbols), and copyrights (e.g., rights for music, literature, and artistic works). Copyrights grant the creator of an original work exclusive rights to reproduce, prepare, distribute, and perform the original work for a limited period of time (i.e., life of the creator plus seventy years after death). In other words, a copyright gives the rights holder, a “right to copy” the work.
In some instances, copyrights may be considered sanctioned monopolies (e.g., single supplier of a commodity) which may interfere with a free market, freedom of speech, and education and equality of access. Therefore, in copyright law, exceptions and limitations exist which provide provisions to allow copyrighted works to be used without a license from the copyright owner, thus balancing the public's interest with the interest of the creator. Limitations and exceptions to copyrights include the fair use doctrine (which permits limited use in instances, such as search engines, news reporting, research, teaching, etc.), threshold of originality (i.e., threshold below which objects cease to be copyrightable), idea-expression dichotomy (i.e., limits the scope of a copyright by differentiating an idea from the expression), and the public domain (i.e., works whose intellectual property rights have expired or are otherwise available for public use).
Printers and image scanners are devices which are capable of creating identical, duplicate reproductions of an original item, such as a document or image. Printers create human-readable representations of graphics or text on physical media (e.g., paper or transparencies). Printers receive print job requests (e.g., electronic file to be printed), and store the information in a printer buffer (e.g., temporary memory) which is accessed by a print simultaneous peripheral operations on-line (SPOOL) which places the print jobs into a queue for processing. The print jobs are then processed, thus creating a duplicate copy or multiple, duplicate copies for utilization. Image scanners are devices which optically scan images, text, handwriting, etc., and create a digital image (e.g., electronic copy) of the information. A scanned image is created by placing hardcopy information upon the glass window of the image scanner. The image scanner utilizes a movable light source, in conjunction with fixed and movable mirrors, to scan the hardcopy and deliver the information to a charge-coupled device which processes the received information and creates the digital file. The digital image may then be stored on a computer or removable hardware (e.g., memory card) to be utilized, printed, or shared with other users.